Class Warfare - Pay Attention, America...

One sentence that perfectly explains how out of control money in American politics is. If you wanted a single sentence to sum up the state of our modern campaign finance system, it would be hard to do better than this one from the Washington Post's Matea Gold and Tom Hamburger: One longtime bundler recently fielded a call from a dispirited executive on his yacht, who complained, "We just don't count anymore.

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Let me sleep: Georgia trash man gets 30 days in jail for 5 a.m. pick up. If he keeps his nose clean, sanitation worker Kevin McGill of Sandy Springs, Ga., might just make it through his 30-day sentence (to be served on consecutive weekends) for disturbing wealthy residents by picking up the trash too early in the morning – just in time to celebrate National Garbage Man Day – June 17.

Mr. McGill, a new employee of a company contracted to do sanitation work in Sandy Springs, was cited for picking up trash just after 5 a.m. one morning, according to WSB-TV. A city ordinance limits trash pickup to between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. in order to allow the wealthy suburbans there to sleep peacefully. One of the fundamental questions raised by this case is whether an employee or the employer should be punished for a violation of the law. Typically, prosecutors go after the company. But Sandy Springs prosecutor Bill Riley told local media that he’s tried citing companies with little result and so has chosen to go after the individual employees instead. Mr. Neither Mr.
This is why the middle class can't get ahead. Editor’s Note: When’s the last time you worked overtime?

How about the last time you worked overtime and got paid for it? If you’re in the middle class, probably not recently. Only Americans who make less than $23,660 a year are automatically eligible for time-and-a-half pay after working 40 hours a week. Today, that’s only 11 percent of salaried workers.
9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact. There's a chart I saw recently that I can't get out of my head.

A Harvard business professor and economist asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth was distributed in the United States.
Dimon's Pay Jumps to $20 Million in a Year of Legal Woes for JPMorgan Chase. Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesJamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, was awarded $20 million in compensation for 2013.

Updated, 9:09 p.m. | JPMorgan Chase, after a year marred by scandal and stiff regulatory penalties, has decided to award its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, $20 million in compensation for 2013, an amount that will further inflame the debate over the accountability of senior bank executives. The award, announced in a company filing on Friday, is 74 percent higher than the $11.5 million that Mr. Dimon earned in 2012.
The Rich Get Richer Through the Recovery. The top 10 percent of earners took more than half of the country’s total income in 2012, the highest level recorded since the government began collecting the relevant data a century ago, according to an updated study by the prominent economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty.

The top 1 percent took more than one-fifth of the income earned by Americans, one of the highest levels on record since 1913, when the government instituted an income tax. The figures underscore that even after the recession the country remains in a new Gilded Age, with income as concentrated as it was in the years that preceded the Depression of the 1930s, if not more so. High stock prices, rising home values and surging corporate profits have buoyed the recovery-era incomes of the most affluent Americans, with the incomes of the rest still weighed down by high unemployment and stagnant wages for many blue- and white-collar workers.

That increase is probably in part due to one-time factors. Mr.
40% of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage. You may have seen charts like the one to the right from the Economic Policy Institute, showing how working people’s wages stopped going up along with productivity gains.

This means the gains went…somewhere else. See if you can guess who got them? (Hint: it’s the 1 percent; this is one driver of the terrible income and wealth inequality.) This breakoff of wages from productivity growth is partly the result of trade agreements that pit Americans against exploited workers in non-democracies.
Les Leopold: Inequality Is Much Worse Than You Think. • In 2010, the top hedge fund manager earned as much in one HOUR as the average (median) family earned in 47 YEARS. • The top 25 hedge fund managers in 2010 earned as much as 658,000 entry level teachers. • In 1970 the top 100 CEOs made $40 for every dollar earned by the average worker.

By 2006, the CEOs received $1,723 for every worker dollar. As the administration and Congress argue over cuts in social programs, inequality in America grows more extreme each day.
Who is fighting for the middle class? President Obama versus Mitt Romney.
Because the tax code is complex, the calculator makes a number of simplifying assumptions that may differ from the circumstances of any particular user.

It assumes all income is from wages. For married filers, it assumes that income is split evenly between two earners.
Forbes 400 List Reveals Why the Greedy Rich Fully Deserve Your Contempt. Photo Credit: Shutterstock September 27, 2012 | Like this article?

Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Last week, as you were treated to Mitt Romney’s contempt for nearly half the country, Forbes Magazine published its annual list of the 400 wealthiest Americans.
Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality - Jim Tankersley. If you’re plugged into the Internet, chances are you’ve seen a TED talk – the wonky, provocative web videos that have become a sort of nerd franchise. TED.com is where you go to find Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg explaining why the world has too few female leaders, or Twitter cofounder Evan Williams sharing the secret power of listening to users to drive company improvement.

The slogan of the nonprofit group behind the site is “Ideas Worth Spreading.”
America's billionaire-run democracy - 2012 Elections. Watching what’s happening to our democracy is like watching the cruise ship Costa Concordia founder and sink slowly into the sea off the coast of Italy, as the passengers, shorn of life vests, scramble for safety as best they can, while the captain trips and falls conveniently into a waiting life boat.

We are drowning here, with gaping holes torn into the hull of the ship of state from charges detonated by the owners and manipulators of capital. Their wealth has become a demonic force in politics. Nothing can stop them.
It's the Wealth Gap, Stupid. When Mitt Romney bowed to political pressure and released his 2010 tax return, it showed, to no one's great surprise, that the Romneys are rich. Really, really rich. They reported income of more than $21 million, itemized deductions of over $4.5 million, and a total tax bill of just over $3 million. They made charitable contributions of almost $3 million, although more than half of that went to their church. But what really stood out in the tax return—beyond the presidential candidate's 13.9 percent tax rate—is not that Mitt makes a lot of money, it's that he has a lot of money.

Mind-Blowing Charts From the Senate's Income Inequality Hearing. I-want-you-to-disagree-and-fight-amongst-each-other.jpg (JPEG Image, 500x500 pixels)
World's wealthiest people now richer than before the credit crunch, says study. Where Pay for Chief Executives Tops the Company Tax Burden. Jon Stewart Defends the Poor from Money-Grubbing Conservatives.

Stewart is joking about this, but there is a serious point embedded here. The problem is that the right is much more fluent in using language to put forth the most ridiculous and cruel of proposals, under the guise of "fairness". Stewart successfully put lie to this, by using of course, numbers.
Land of the Free, Home of the Poor. 1 in 13 Georgia adults in the prison system Pew Center on the States - On the LAKE Front. Georgia is number 1 in something: locking people up, 1 in 13 of adults, according to the Pew Center on the States. That costs us more than a billion dollars a year in tax money, 5.9% of the state budget.
Reddit: the front page of the internet. Debt Crisis Deepens as Eric Cantor, GOP Propose New Cuts. Do companies want to hide CEO pay? - U.S. Economy.

Twenty-Five Arrested, Thousands Converge on Koch Brothers Billionaire's Caucus in the California Desert. January 30, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email.
Wealth And Inequality In America. The Beast File - Koch Brothers (HUNGRY BEAST)
But There's Hope in the Fight Against Global Capital. June 14, 2011 |
REPORT: In 12 Years, Income For Richest 400 Americans Quadruples, Tax Rate Nearly Halved. The Real Housewives of Wall Street. Ikea: Workers' complaints surround Ikea's U.S. factory - latimes.com. Reporting from Danville, Va. — When home furnishing giant Ikea selected this fraying blue-collar city to build its first U.S. factory, residents couldn't believe their good fortune. Beloved by consumers worldwide for its stylish and affordable furniture, the Swedish firm had also constructed a reputation as a good employer and solid corporate citizen.

State and local officials offered $12 million in incentives.
In 2010, CEO Pay Went Up 27% While Worker Pay Went Up 2%
By Pat Garofalo on April 1, 2011 at 9:50 am. Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
Buried Provision In House GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps To Entire Families If One Member Strikes. Rich Take From Poor as U.S. Subsidy Law Funds Luxury Hotels.